Menu Planning & Picky 2 & 4 YO's

[Melis]

Please help! I am tearing my hair out (btw, where is the Smiley Guy for that one?)!!! I am really good about meal planning and grocery lists, but my children refuse all vegetables, eat hardly any meat and drink no milk. I try to stick to a whole foods menu and buy mostly organic, but most weeks I feel like my children are not being properly nourished. I try so hard to come up with new meals, but they never get eaten and who has the time and/or money for wasting food? I'm so frustrated and tired of serving pizza and grilled cheese just because I know it's what they will eat. Am I alone here? How do you do your meal plan when you know most of the meals will only be eaten by you and your DP?

[baybones]

I don't have any great advice because I have the same problem. The main veggie I'm able to get my 2 year old to eat is green beans and I have to give her ketchup to dip them in. What about hiding the veggies in dishes, like grating it to where they don't notice it and maybe not even taste it. I've heard this done with squash and carrots. Good luck!

[Rebecca]

We have the same problem sometimes. Wish I had a great solution! Sean generally eats a good variety of foods and we ask him to take a 'no thank you' bite of whatever it is he insists he can't stand. We always have at least one thing on his plate we know he'll eat but we won't let him get away with seconds and thirds of just that one thing without at least trying the others. We also don't give them anything to drink at mealtime (after dinner they can have juice or milk) because they just fill up on liquids and dont' eat. Doesn't it seem like they live on air?

[becca011906]

I was talking about this with one of my friends the other day... she says she always ends up cooking to much b/c her and her dh want something for dinner and the kids wont eat it so they make something eles for them. I told her she was NUTS! I don't go the whole organic rout, i can't afforid it for one, but I do only cook ONE meal and try to cover all food groups in it with veggy or pasta or rice bing the main sorce of food. I've made it a rule that every food on the table goes onto your plate weather you eat it or not and eventully the child will try it my kids took a while about 3-6 months of doing this but now they see this is what we are eating today/night so i guess i'll try it out!

[Poddi]

We have the same problem here. My boys are so picky. P isn't so bad about veggies, but O absolutely wouldn't try anything that's not bread or meat. According to my husband's family my foods are quite tasty, don't know why they wouldn't eat them. You never know which day they wouldn't feel like eating something. O loves sweet potatoes, I made sweet potato fries and he wouldn't eat any. P loves macaroni and cheese, I made it with white cheese once and he wouldn't touch it. I sure hope they would be open minded later because I love all kinds of different things.